Nile Gardiner is a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and political commentator. A former aide to Margaret Thatcher, Gardiner has served as a foreign policy adviser to two US presidential campaigns. He appears frequently on American and British television, including Fox News Channel, BBC, and Fox Business Network.

The Obama Administration knifes Britain yet again over the Falklands

In his talks with President Obama in March, David Cameron reportedly gained assurances from the White House that Washington would stop pressing for negotiations between London and Buenos Aires over the sovereignty of the Falklands. If such an assurance was given, it was surely worthless. As Mercosur Press (South Atlantic News Agency) has just reported, the State Department is once again calling for UK-Argentina negotiations, ahead of next week’s Organisation of American States summit in Bolivia:

“Our policy is unchanged. We believe that this is a bilateral issue that needs to be worked out directly between Argentina and the United Kingdom. That’s what we are encouraging both sides to do” said Acting Under Secretary for Press Affairs at the State Department Mike Hammer during an exchange with reporters on Twitter.

Likewise “we are encouraging Argentina and the UK to work this out peacefully, to work it out through negotiations”.

This is basically a reiteration of Hillary Clinton’s statement in Buenos Aires alongside Argentina’s president Cristina Kirchner in March 2010:

We want very much to encourage both countries to sit down. Now, we cannot make either one do so, but we think it is the right way to proceed. So we will be saying this publicly, as I have been, and we will continue to encourage exactly the kind of discussion across the table that needs to take place.

State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland repeated this line in February this year, telling reporters:

We believe that this is a bilateral issue that needs to be worked out directly between Argentina and the United Kingdom. That’s what we are encouraging both sides to do as we head towards this anniversary… we are encouraging Argentina and the UK to work this out peacefully, to work it out through negotiations.

Barack Obama recently declared himself to be “neutral” on the Falklands, which is bad enough. But he is more than just “neutral”. His administration is actively siding with Argentina’s calls for a negotiated settlement. This is a position that Britain views as completely unacceptable, and with good reason. Over 95 percent of the inhabitants of the Falklands are British, and wish to remain under the protection of the British Crown. They have no desire to live under the boot of Argentina, and it is a clear-cut case of self-determination. The idea that the British should sit down with the Argentines to negotiate the future of the Falkland Islands is simply preposterous.

Earlier this week the US president caused huge offence in Poland by referring to “Polish death camps” during World War Two. Just two days later his government has slapped another US ally in the face, yet again, over the Falklands. Mr. Obama should remember that more than 250 British servicemen gave their lives in 1982 to liberate the Falklands following the Argentine invasion. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten by the British people, and the suggestion that what they fought for should be negotiated away is both insensitive and insulting on the part of the Obama administration.